Three of Chains / Owner of the Future

If you have drawn or feel strongly attracted to the image of the Owner of the Future, it indicates that you have, or will have in the near future, a strong inner urge to change some important aspects of the direction of your life in a significant way, but you are prevented from doing so by an inability to move, stagnation, paralysis and the presence of demons, which of course can be inner, outer or even (most often) both at the same time. 

The motifs of budding flowers, spring greenery, and the opportunity of investors waiting in the wind for a chance, suggest the potential and hunger for personal enrichment, all-appreciated success in buying real estate, building hotels, and achieving a monopoly from Vodičkova Street to Wenceslas Square. But notice the attitude and faces of the businessmen: their backs turned towards the observer and the gloomy, disapproving expression of the only one who is turned forward are a picture of obstacles, conflicts rooted in social situations and the contradictions between expectations and the ability to fulfill them. The desire for personal development, a balanced relationship with oneself, and the achievement of spiritual unity with the universe encounters the fear of moving in unexplored directions, of stepping out into the darkness, the risk associated with ordering a gift box with unspecified contents.

The influx of cannabinoids, regulated on the one hand by one’s financial situation at the time, and on the other by the repressive forces of the state, increases the paranoia and general suspicion of anyone who is currently, either purposefully or against their will, transforming into one of the hybrid forms of human and alien. What follows is a self-enclosure, masked by an apparent connection with others through a complete surrender of control over one’s own life to interactive tools whose attractive content conceals the real reason for their existence – the collection of data for the needs of internet marketers. The image of a hand clutching a phone speaks of this, which at the same time serves as a warning against succumbing to the lure of the quick dopamine reward from a quick shuffle of tiktok cards. The stick-on nails and eyelash extensions are meant to alert us to the contradiction arising from the desire to solve personal problems with socialization by acquiring fashion accessories and achieving social recognition through the modulation of one’s own attractive appearance: this conflict stems from the fact that however realistic the fulfillment of this goal may be, it ultimately serves again the ejaculating gold-diggers of intimate content data, which they capitalize on in the name of unprecedented individual enrichment. Thus, the paradox of our own ambitions is that they lead, on the one hand, to the approaching fulfillment of secret dreams and personal desires, as well as to feelings of alienation, incompleteness, unoriginality and lack of freedom on the other. This is due to an excessive fixation on these desires and the simultaneous impossibility of abandoning the inseparable spiral of loss of personal integrity associated with them, whether by active or passive surrender to the instruments of instant gratification but also of never-ending control.

It is these contradictions and paradoxes that are the message of the image of the Owner of the Future. It is meant to indicate our path, for which it is both a blessing and a warning. For the journey is and will be full of contradictions and the experience of feelings of cognitive dissonance. The pilgrim looks towards the future and sees a black hole. It is up to them to take the next step and embrace the unknown with its contradictions and dangers. Or will they remain standing and dissolve into the motionless eternity of the contrapost, which may bring the bliss of blindness but also the eternal grief of unfulfilled potential.

— Šimon Kadlčák